Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note that today is the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. As former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan said in 1998:

This is a day on which we pay our respects to those who have endured the unimaginable. This is an occasion for the world to speak up against the unspeakable. It is long overdue that a day be dedicated to remembering and supporting the many victims and survivors of torture around the world.

As a democratic country, we do not tend to think of Australia as a place where torture is sanctioned or practised, but of course it is home to many people who have suffered torture. To that end I would like to recognise the work done by the Association for Services to Torture and Trauma Survivors, or ASeTTS. This Perth based non-profit, non-government organisation provides free counselling to 2,000 refugees in Western Australia each year. It takes as its task ‘the provision and promotion of comprehensive and holistic services to people who have endured torture and trauma resulting from unjust persecution and violent conflict’. It also undertakes important research into the needs of torture and trauma victims. Today is an opportunity to honour the work of organisations like ASeTTs, and I want to personally commend the 38 employees and 90 volunteers who work for ASeTTs, as well its patron, Janet Holmes a Court.

Today we might also reflect on those victims of torture yet to come to our shores—and people who may never get that chance: men, women and children who are forced to flee their own countries, people oppressed by their own governments. As members on both sides of the House have noted in recent times, torture and murder have been frightening features of the state sponsored violence and intimidation that has taken place in Zimbabwe following the 29 March parliamentary and presidential elections. We have heard horrific accounts of how the bodies of MDC supporters have been found with their eyes gouged out, genitals mutilated, lips and tongues and in some cases breasts, arms and legs cut off. In this environment, it is not surprising that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has withdrawn from the presidential run-off election.

Torture has been a feature of the darker side of humanity from the earliest time to the present and throughout every part of the world. Thankfully society’s revulsion against torture has also been an increasingly strong countervailing force. In international law terms, the prohibition on torture joins prohibitions against slavery and genocide as a jus cogens norm which applies to all nations, regardless of whether or not they have entered into a treaty prohibiting torture. Under article 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, a jus cogens norm is ‘a norm accepted and recognised by the international community of states as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted’. In other words, under international law there are no circumstances and there is no place in which torture is acceptable.

The prohibition on torture is part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which will celebrate its 60th anniversary in December this year. It is also part of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the international Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Australia has of course ratified the ICCPR and the convention against torture.

Just last month, in May 2008, the UN Committee against Torture delivered its observations on Australia’s implementation of the convention. The UN committee’s report was extremely positive about several new initiatives of the Rudd Labor government, which include the apology to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the ending of the so-called Pacific solution and the new government’s commitment to becoming a party to the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, known as OPCAT. I note that it has long been the policy of the Australian Labor Party to become a party to OPCAT.

There were also aspects of the committee’s observations that merit follow-up by the government. Among other things, the committee noted as its first main concern that the convention against torture has only been partially adopted into Australian law. Indeed, there is no specific offence of torture at the federal level and there are gaps in the criminalisation of torture in the states and territories. The UN committee recommended that Australia fully incorporate the convention into domestic law by enacting a specific offence of torture at the Commonwealth level. The committee also indicated that Australia should continue consultations with regard to a bill or charter of rights to ensure comprehensive constitutional protection of basic human rights at the federal level.

I note that the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture has been recognised by Amnesty International, which organised today for Professor Maxime Tardu, former Director of the Research and Treaties Branch of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, to address the Human Rights Subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, in addition to providing a seminar in this place. These presentations were extremely useful and I am grateful to Professor Tardu and to Amnesty International for their efforts to advance human rights in Australia and throughout the world. This international day is a day when we remember the victims of torture and when we say no to torture—not here, not anywhere. (Time expired)